BuaNews (Tshwane)
Michael Appel
23 July 2008
Pretoria — The construction of the Mbombela Stadium in Mpumalanga is taking place on 118 hectares of land which has recently been restored to the Matsafeni community.
After numerous meetings, the community will be given a 50 percent stake in the operations of the stadium, said acting Chief Land Claims Commissioner, Blessing Mphela, Wednesday.
"We had a meeting between the Commission and members of the Matsafeni community in the province regarding the issue of the construction of the stadium on land belonging to the community.
"The outcome of the meeting is that there is a general understanding that the construction of the stadium in preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup is in the public interest," said the commissioner.
The commissioner was speaking at a briefing to update the media on the progress made in the land restitution programme.
A total of 5 700 hectares of land was restored to the Matsafeni community, and 118 hectares will as a result of the construction be ceded to the municipality.
Mr Mphela said it would have been very difficult for the municipality to invest vast amounts of money to develop privately owned land, and the community was therefore approached for their cooperation.
"The investment could only be possible once the community had ceded the land to the municipality. About 70 hectares of the 118 hectares alienated to the municipality for development purposes is for construction of the stadium.
"About 48 hectares of the alienated land will be used for housing development. The land restored to the Matsafeni community was purchased for R62 million," he said.
The land on which the stadium is being constructed is now valued at R43 million, taking into account the potential of the land.
The community will enter into a 50/50 partnership for a joint venture regarding the control and management of the stadium.
"This means that the community will receive a portion of the proceeds from the business operations taking place in the stadium precinct," said the commissioner, adding that the development of the stadium is costing about R900 million.
With regard to the progress of the land restitution programme, Mr Mphela said to date a total amount of about R10.6 billion had gone into the pockets of land owners as compensation for their land for the purpose of restoring it to claimants, as well as for financial compensation for those claimants who had opted for money rather than land.
Approximately R5 billion was allocated as development grants for beneficiaries where land has been restored.
The Commission is currently setting in place a mechanism to address post settlement support in a comprehensive fashion in line with the Settlement Support Implementation (SIS) strategy which will be implemented as part of the Land and Agrarian Reform Programme (LARP).
"We are working hard to ensure that there is a complete support package for those whose needs would be accommodated in terms of the improvement of livelihoods, as well as to ensure sustainability for projects by emerging commercial farmers," he said.
As at 30 June 2008, the Land Claims Commission had settled a total of 74 808 claims out of the more than 79 000 claims lodged by the cut off date of 31 December 1998.
Mr Mphela highlighted that a total of two million hectares of land has been restored to 289 937 households benefiting about 1.4 million individuals at a cost of R16 billion to government.
The outstanding 4 949 claims are mostly rural claim disputed, he said, adding that complications regarding family disputes, boundary disputes, and traditional leadership disputes was making the process increasingly difficult to resolve.
He said the commission requires about another five years and R18 billion to settle the almost 5 000 claims outstanding. There are currently 143 cases being heard at the Land Claims Court, Mr Mphela said.
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